Brush With Death 1

Brush with death-one                                                                             

Christmas when I was twelve brought many nice presents but the BIG ONE was a three speed Schwinn, sleek and shiny, the best present ever! After riding it for a week of vacation, I was more than ready for the first day of school to show it off.  My girlfriend picked me up and we started out on the seven block ride. Her bike was old.  I felt bad for her. She begged to trade bikes just to try it out. After two blocks I switched with her. What a difference!  No smooth ride, no gears to change, it was a rickety ride on a rusty old bike and I said, ‘Let’s switch back at the next corner!’

“Okay”, was the last thing I heard before the chain slipped and I was thrown off balance into the roadway. As the bike and I came to rest on the asphalt I saw the tire of the car pass within four inches of my head. It stopped and I was getting up when the lady got out of the car.  She was very pale, the blood drained from her face in shock. “I thought I’d run over you,” she exclaimed. “Are you all right?”

I managed to stand. “Fine”, I replied. As she left, my friend said, “Oh, yeah, I was going to tell you, the chain is slipping!”

I actually wasn’t fine. As I rode to school on my new bike I noticed drops of blood on the frame.  Then, I realized my knee was bleeding a lot. At school, the nurse bandaged the ground meat that remained on my knee and I went to class.                        

            Around ten o’clock I was surprised to see my mother come to the classroom.  She had come to school to register my brother, Roger, for kindergarten. She wanted to see my knee.  One look at the grayish old hamburger where my knee used to be and off we went.

            At the doctor’s office, after three numbing shots, I spent a half hour behind a drape as the sound of gravel hitting a metal pan rang through the office. I might have been a better patient had they let me see what he was doing.  But, instead, I screamed bloody murder and I still have a bluish dark spot over the location of one rock he didn’t remove.

            The doctor told my mother it was a good thing she brought me then as waiting until the afternoon would have cost me my knee.  So, my little brother saved my knee!